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| Saturday, 04 September 2004 |
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SriLankan welcomes healthy competition - CEO by Shirajiv Sirimane "The SriLankan Airlines welcomes healthy competition from the Open Sky Policy Agreements," said Chief Executive Officer, SriLankan, Peter Hill. Speaking to the Daily News at their silver jubilee celebration, the CEO, said that the Indian domestic airlines are already operating to India. "We welcome this," he said. "More airline traffic coming into Sri Lanka would bring in more business and country too are benefitted. We are the handling agents," he said. The Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar has already negotiated with two of Thailand budget airlines. Asia Air and NOK to commence operations in Sri Lanka exploiting the Open Sky Policy Agreement. Hill said that his first few years in Sri Lanka were bumpy but now things are running smoothly. He said that the airline is always looking out for new destinations and they want to expand to India. "We are looking out for two more destinations soon," he said. The airline will be flying to China next month. "We are looking at more destinations in Asia and Far East," he said. Hill said that operating to Asian destinations is cheaper due to low fuel consumption. SriLankan's services include 77 flights per week to 10 Indian cities, New Delhi, Bombay, Trichy, Madras, Trivandrum, Hyderabad, Bodh Gaya, Kochi, Calicut, and Bangalore - with plans to begin services to Ahmedabad later this year. SriLankan scheduled to launch services to China in November, operates a domestic service, SriLankan Air Taxi, using an amphibious Cessna Caravan floatplane to fly to 10 destinations. The airline has won the "World's Friendliest Cabin Crew" award in 2002 by Skytrax Research, first runner up in 2002 for the Skytrax "Best Cabin Staff" award, Avion's best inflight entertainment award in 2003 for a fleet size of less than 20, and Reise and Preise magazines "Best Airline" in the 2003 survey of Economy class passengers. SriLankan swept up the title Best Airline in Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent for the fourth consecutive year in the Airline of the Year 2004 survey by Skytrax, the world's largest survey of airline passengers. SriLankan Airlines also achieved the distinction of being chosen by Airbus Industrie as the most efficient operator of Airbus A330 aircraft among all of the world's airlines for the years 2002 and 2003, in the Small Fleet category of less than ten A330s, a tribute to its punctuality. SriLankan was privatised in April 1998. The government of Sri Lanka sold a 40% shareholding to Emirates, which was also contracted to manage the company for a period of 10 years. The government retains the majority shareholding, while Emirates has increased its stake to 43 per cent. |
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